7 Types of Test Automation

John Spacey, updated on February 11, 2017

Test automation is the automated execution of test cases and documentation of results. The following are common types of test automation.

Unit Testing

Testing by developers as they develop code using a test harness. Unit testing is important because it tests things at a fine-grained component level.

Integration Testing

Testing related to the integration of systems, data, components and services. For example, it is common to automate API testing.

User Acceptance Testing

Automated tools that can control a user interface and automatically evaluate results using a test script.

Regression Testing

Automation of regression tests at a variety of levels such as unit tests and user acceptance tests to validate that a change hasn't broken existing functionality.

Continuous Testing

Running regression tests on a product after every small change in code. This can occur at a variety of levels such as unit tests, API tests, information security tests, performance tests and user acceptance tests.

Information Security Testing

Vulnerability scans and automated penetration tests.

Quality Control

Testing production results such as the speed of a service or conformance of a manufactured product to specifications. Often highly automated.

Overview: Test Automation
Type	Testing Unit Testing Quality Control
Definition	The automated execution of test cases and documentation of results.
Value	Manual testing is typically resource intensive.
Related Concepts	Testing Unit Testing Quality Control Test Case Test Harness